1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape measure with innovated brake structure, and more particularly, to a brake structure for a tape measure which can conveniently control the retraction of the measuring tape.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The tape measure is frequently used in the construction site for professional measurement, estimation and examination. It is also often used for domestic application such as house repairing or furniture making done by the house owner himself in do-it-yourself way. However, a simple conventional tape measure has a lot of shortcomings, especially in its brake mechanism, those shortcomings are:
1. The clamping claw acting as a brake mechanism for the tape measure will not operate promptly and properly to hold the tape in its extended position, that in the worst case, the tape strongly retracts if it is not carefully controlled, and results in hurting the user himself or a third person staying nearby.
2. The clamping claw for a conventional tape measure can not bear frequent on-off operation resulting in high fault rate. A brake mechanism formed of spring, screws and other steel component is prone to wear out rapidly and shortens the lifetime of a tape measure and results in increasing its production cost.
3. It is difficult to operate when several successive measurement are required, as it is not easy to halt the tape appropriately at the desire length for measurement with a conventional brake mechanism.
4. A conventional tape measure with such brake mechanism is not only hard for a skilled user to handle, but also dangerous for housewives or children to use it in DIY work for fear of sudden retract notion of the tape when measuring a large scale object may cause injury to the human body.
Through a long term study and efforts, the applicant has developed an innovated brake structure for a tape measure which can solve the above mentioned problems of conventional products, and the invention will now be disclosed hereinafter.